BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

In his 25 years as a head coach, Mike Hastings has never experienced a losing season.

Stop.

Take a breath.

Let that sink in.

Before he became the newest caretaker of the University of Wisconsin men's hockey program, Hastings spent 14 years coaching Omaha in the premier Tier I junior league in North America. His club won three Clark Cup titles and the lowest single-season winning percentage during his tenure was .615. He then spent 11 years at Minnesota State in one of the most enduring NCAA Division I conferences. His team won the last six conference titles and the lowest single-season winning percentage during his stint was .598.

How difficult is it to coach for 20-plus years, in any sport at any level, and not experience at least one clunker of a season? Maybe it's injuries. Maybe it's turmoil within. Maybe it's a case of a recruit or two not panning out. Maybe it's a torrent of bad luck.

To have a winning streak that long you have to have a detailed plan, be consistent in everything you do, be adaptable and be where your feet are.

Nick Saban, the Alabama football coach, has done it for 27 consecutive years. John Wooden did it for 29 years as UCLA men's basketball coach. Pat Summitt did it for 30 years in a row as Tennessee women's basketball coach. Anson Dorrance did it for 44 years as men's and women's soccer coach at North Carolina.

The weight of Hastings' resume was not lost on Chris McIntosh, the UW director of athletics who opened a virtual introductory press conference with a brief, but hefty overview.

"His record of success is unbelievable,'' McIntosh said.

Wisconsin actually has two hockey coaches who've reached 20-plus seasons without a losing record. Mark Johnson, who has 21 straight winning seasons going back to his one-year debut in the pros with the old Madison Monsters, is in the club as well.

Two extraordinary fun facts:

Hastings is the nation's active leader in win percentage in men's college hockey at .719. His next victory will be No. 300 (299-109-25) of his career.

Johnson, whose team is fresh off winning its record-setting seventh NCAA title, is the all-time leader in win percentage in women's college hockey at .816. He needs six victories to reach No. 600 (594-113-53) for his career.

For his part, Hastings, whose hiring at UW was announced March 30, said there are a variety of threads that weave his 25 seasons together, but one is paramount.    

"I've been fortunate to be around good players who were willing to look into the prospect of being selfless and to give of themselves for each other for the team to be successful,'' he said.

Hastings then rattled off a list of key necessities.

"It's compete (level), it's accountability, it's communication and it's working hard to make sure you've got everybody – as much as you can in today's world – pulling in the same direction for the greater good of the group than as an individual,'' he said.

Hastings is known for featuring mature teams that are disciplined, well-rounded, relentless and rarely beat themselves. His approach was honed from 1994 to 2008 with Omaha in the U.S. Hockey League, where he was named General Manager of the Year five times and Coach of the Year twice.

At Minnesota State, Hastings inherited a program that won 20 games in a season twice during its first 16 seasons as an NCAA Division I entry. The Mavericks won at least 20 every year under Hastings, winning four Western Collegiate Hockey Association titles and two in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association when realignment altered the college hockey landscape.

Minnesota State qualified for the NCAA tournament eight times under Hastings, advancing to the Frozen Four in 2021 and the national championship match in '22.

Hastings has won the Spencer Penrose Award as national coach of the year three times and is the only one to claim it in consecutive seasons (2021, '22).

That track record helps explain why USA Hockey has tabbed Hastings for high-profile coaching roles for the World Junior Championships, the World Championships and the Olympics.

Hastings counts some of the most accomplished coaches in NCAA history as his mentors. Dean Blais is a U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer who won two NCAA titles at North Dakota. Don Lucia won two national championships at Minnesota. Bob Motzko led St. Cloud State to an NCAA Frozen Four berth in 2013 and currently has Minnesota in another.

Hastings said his mentors have a shared trait: They're quality people.

"When you talk about being a good person, I think that's encompassing a lot of different things,'' he said. "Being honest. Being able to have a hard conversation, having some empathy, being able to ask people to do things that you don't have a problem doing.

"Good people are sustainable. They understand that they don't do it alone and one of the most important pieces that I've heard from those guys is surround yourself with quality. That's what I'm trying to do.''

Blais said Hastings was "one of the best assistants I've had and I've had some good ones'' before offering a list that includes Dave Hakstol, Scott Sandelin, Brad Berry and former UW associate head coach Mark Osiecki. Hakstol coaches Seattle in the NHL. The others have helped produce at least one NCAA titlist at powerhouse schools like North Dakota (Berry), Minnesota-Duluth (Sandelin) and Wisconsin (Osiecki).

"Mike has a way of bringing the best out of players,'' Blais said. "He has a way of bringing the best out of people.''

Those who know Hastings emphasize his gregarious nature, but also his intensity. 

"We had nothing but fun,'' said Blais, who worked with Hastings at Nebraska-Omaha from 2009 to '12. "He and I together it was like a cartoon show every day I went to work. He's just a great guy. A great family man.''

John Harrington, a member of the Olympic gold-medal-winning Miracle on Ice team in the 1980 Olympics, is the women's coach at Minnesota State.

"He's a fun person, a funny person, but he can shift into coach mode, too, where he becomes a pretty intense individual,'' Harrington said.

"His biggest thing is getting his players to play hard,'' Blais said. "They don't get away with anything. If a guy has a bad shift, well, he had a bad shift. But you better not have a couple of them or you can't afford to play for Mike.

"He'll bring the best out of players. He's honest. He doesn't play mind games. Guys like playing for him. He keeps the game simple. He keeps the game honest because he's an honest guy. Mike gets his players to play the right way.''

Former Wisconsin men's assistant and Nebraska-Omaha coach Mike Kemp worked closely with Hastings, first when Hastings was in the USHL and later when Hastings was an assistant under Blais.

"He's an intense coach who has a real outstanding personality,'' Kemp said. "He's one of these guys who gets along with everybody and is everybody's friend.

"He's got a system that works for him to be successful. His teams will play very disciplined hockey. They're not going to be the kind of team that beats itself.''

Former UW captain Jake Dowell got a sense of Hastings' approach while playing on the U.S. entry in the 2005 World Junior Championships.

"He definitely commands respect and brought the best out of the guys,'' Dowell said.

Hastings takes over a Wisconsin program that has won six NCAA titles, but failed to win consistently under Tony Granato.

Is this a rebuilding project?

"I've got to find that out,'' Hastings said. "It's one thing to watch something on film. It's another thing to dive into why things are the way they are on film. To me, right now I'm in the education of what my book of business is going to have to be to get better. Most importantly, I have to get in front of the players and ask them what they think.''

High atop Hastings' to-do list are individual meetings with players as soon as possible.

"They know what they've been through,'' he said. "They know what their relationships have been previously with the other staff. I need to learn that for me to be able to connect and ask them to do certain things. The better I know them the easier it is for us to get there.

"I've got to find out where their commitment level is to each other, to the University of Wisconsin and what their goals are because I know what ours are.''

Hastings said he didn't hesitate when offered the job.

"Wisconsin is one of college hockey's great programs,'' he said.

Returning the Badgers to consistent prominence is the priority. Their most recent NCAA title came in 2006. The last time UW qualified for consecutive national tournament berths was 2013 and 2014.

Hastings comes across as thorough, detailed, thoughtful and personable, someone who has fused cordial adaptability with just enough fiery impatience to grab your attention.

Is he old-school?

"Not as much as I used to be,'' he said with a laugh. "The old-school way was 'Do it because I told you to. I'm the coach.' Now there's an understanding between the coach and the player, 'Why?' You've got to be comfortable talking about the why.''

Asked to describe his greatest strength, Hastings shone a beam of light on his ability to communicate.

"We all have to have humility, looking at and understanding that just because I've got opinions, they don't always have to stand true,'' he said. "Part of it is having an open mind to listen. Be convicted in what you're doing, but I feel a strength of mine is I don't feel my perspective is the only one that needs to be heard.''

Blais and Harrington both mentioned that Hastings has advanced instincts when it comes to reading his team on and off the ice.

"There's a lot of good coaches, don't get me wrong,'' Blais said, "but there's not a lot of coaches that can see the game and make changes as the game's going on like he does.''

Part of being a head coach is knowing where to find the pulse of your dressing room.

"A lot of us coaches will go in after the situation has arisen,'' said Harrington, whose son Chris played for Hastings in juniors. "Mike has a great ability to sense the situation that might be arising and be able to handle those things before they get started.''

Hastings, 57, played college hockey at St. Cloud State, where he earned a degree in history, until a back injury forced him to retire. He and his wife, Jean Ann, have two grown children: Hannah, 24, and Hudson, 21.

If there was a watershed moment in Hastings' career, it came relatively early.

"Going from Omaha and being a head coach for 14 years in the USHL, then going back into the assistant coaching world (at Minnesota in 2008), that was a great change for me,'' he said. "It gave me a different perspective not being in the first chair.

"To have the perspective of what it's like to sit in the big chair and not have to, I'll tell you that for a short time I really enjoyed that because I wasn't the one that all the decisions fell on.

"That soon subsided and I wanted to be a head coach again.''

Hastings quickly built Minnesota State into a consistent power. Now another challenge awaits.